Oona King: I want to have kids the Angelina Jolie way

Former Labour MP Oona King, 45, adopted three children after seven failed IVF cycles. She left ITV’s Dancing On Ice on Sunday.

I was brought up in a single-parent family with a brother, Slater, who is 18 months younger than me. We fought like cats and dogs until I was 20. I had a happy childhood. My mum is my inspiration – she was a hard-working, low-paid teacher and always made me think you have to give back to the community. My dad lived in Australia when I was a child and I saw him once a year in the summer holidays.

I always wanted to have kids but had problems doing so. I had seven failed cycles of IVF, which is traumatic and devastating. They were all difficult but some were exponentially worse than others. I couldn’t walk after one transfer. Something went wrong every time I did it – I was also an MP at the time.

The 2005 election campaign began a year early in my constituency when George Galloway declared he was standing. I wasn’t insane enough to schedule IVF treatment during the campaign but I’d already started when he made his announcement. It was unbelievably stressful – made harder by the fact you can’t tell people what’s going on.

We decided to adopt during the last IVF cycle. The positive side to losing the election was that I had time to concentrate on adopting. It was quick for us – four months from the time I first spoke to a social worker to the baby arriving, which is unheard of. The second adoption took two years. You won’t usually be handed a six-week-old baby. We adopted our son Elia, seven, when he was 13 months old, our daughter Kaia, five, when she was 13 months and, by some miracle, we got a baby with our third one, Ariel, who is 16 months old.

The government is trying to make adoption easier. If you’ve adopted already you won’t need another home assessment within five years – which we had to go through three times. You have to remember they’re not giving you a free car – it’s a child. I understand those who say the process is too invasive and I was irritated when my social worker questioned me about my cactus in my living room because normal parents don’t get asked anything.

Adoptive parents have months of bureaucracy to deal with but my kids are so unimaginably precious to me I’d have gone through ten years of bureaucracy for each of them.

It’s easier for interracial adoption to take place now but you don’t want to say ethnicity is irrelevant. On one extreme you can leave a child in the care system for years because you’re waiting for the right ethnic match – which is outrageous. On the other extreme you can take no notice at all. It’s probably easier for a child if they’re not the odd one out; it’s not the most important thing, it’s just something to be aware of.

Adoption isn’t a one-way street. People say ‘you must be such a good person to adopt’ – no, I was going crazy and would have gone completely insane if I couldn’t have my own kids. They’re good for me.

I’d like to have more children – I quite like the Angelina Jolie approach but my husband’s not up for that. I always wanted a big family. My dad is one of seven brothers and all his brothers have at least five kids.

We’ve always been open with the children about adoption from the beginning. They know adoption is a special thing – they were individually chosen in a way a birth child isn’t.